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Hong Kong national security police have arrested the founder of online media outlet Boom News on suspicion of “incitement by spreading disinformation”, according to a source familiar with the matter. The source said journalist Tang Ho-wing, the 37-year-old founder of Boom News, was apprehended at around 7am on Wednesday. Tang, known to internet users as “Boom head” or Bobby, was previously a journ...
Japanese BitTorrent users who thought they were simply downloading adult videos for free are increasingly receiving court notices and demands for hundreds of thousands of yen, as copyright holders step up efforts to identify users through their IP addresses. One self-employed man in his 40s living in Tokyo began using the file-sharing software after reading about it online. He would start download...
Somali pirates killed five crew members of the hijacked MT Honour 25 petroleum products tanker before it was rescued by security forces, Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland said on Tuesday. The deaths aboard the Palau-flagged ship appear to be the first at the hands of Somali pirates in over a decade. The ship with 17 crew members was seized by pirates in April during a resurgence of S...
Taiwan’s military plans to spend more than NT$27 billion (US$850 million) to quadruple critical ammunition stocks to 120 days’ supply, strengthening its ability to sustain combat operations during a wartime blockade. The proposed six-year “urgent ammunition replenishment” programme, running from this year until 2031, comes as Taipei seeks to strengthen its ability to keep fighting if a cross-strai...
Local Chinese authorities have issued warnings and demerits to 11 officials and dismissed the entire kitchen staff at a kindergarten following a teacher’s revelation about unsanitary practices, including washing dirty mops in cooking pots. On June 30, several children at the Affiliated Kindergarten of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology in Jiangsu province exhibited symptoms s...
A Singapore-based education financing programme is testing whether income-linked funding can widen access to higher education without an unmanageable debt burden, a model analysts say could help ease repayment pressure faced by graduates across Southeast Asia. Global Financing for Education’s (GFE) Pay It Forward scheme, publicly launched in September, provides students with funding for their educ...
The two-month extension of the US-China trade truce remains fragile despite last week’s summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, with modest economic concessions leaving deeper disputes unresolved, Asia Society Policy Institute analysts said on Tuesday. “In my view, this truce is very fragile,” said Wendy Cutler, an Asia Society Policy Institute vice-president and former acting deput...
Hong Kong’s first five-year plan and latest policy address have put demographic sustainability on the public agenda. Among the measures announced are an extension of the newborn bonus scheme and increased financial support for the second and subsequent children. These are welcome steps. But the fertility debate should not be reduced to whether a bonus is large enough to change family decisions. Th...
A family of four was sent to hospital on Wednesday morning after a fire broke out at a public housing estate in Sha Tin, prompting the evacuation of around 140 residents. Police received a report at 6.48am as thick smoke poured from a mid-rise flat in Yan Chuen House at Shui Chuen O Estate. The family tried to put out the fire, which started at their TV stand, but failed to do so, and subsequently...
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day state visit to Washington is over, but China watchers in Congress and the US-China policy community are still parsing a wide range of outcomes, with two more leadership summits expected before the end of the year. The talks between Xi and US President Donald Trump produced a series of joint announcements, including an extension of the US-China trade truce, ...
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day state visit to Washington is over, but China watchers in Congress and the US-China policy community are still parsing a wide range of outcomes, with two more leadership summits expected before the end of the year. The talks between Xi and US President Donald Trump produced a series of joint announcements, including an extension of the US-China trade truce, ...
Hong Kong’s crackdown on visitors abusing visas to illegally offer tour guide, photography and other services has failed to deter adverts for such unlicensed work on mainland Chinese social media ahead of the National Day “golden week” break, the South China Morning Post has found. A search of RedNote by the SCMP turned up accounts listing themselves as Shenzhen-based photographers offering their ...
Hong Kong’s crackdown on visitors abusing visas to illegally offer tour guide, photography and other services has failed to deter adverts for such unlicensed work on mainland Chinese social media ahead of the National Day “golden week” break, the South China Morning Post has found. A search of RedNote by the SCMP turned up accounts listing themselves as Shenzhen-based photographers offering their ...
American rapper Macklemore lost his spot on British pop star Ed Sheeran’s US tour after speaking up for Palestinians, but in Malaysia it was Sheeran’s music which ended up being pulled from the airwaves. In neighbouring Singapore, British band Massive Attack faced a different kind of fallout, barred from returning after members displayed a Palestinian flag during a July concert. The contrasting ca...
Executives at Hong Kong’s largest listed companies have a severe lack of technological expertise, with fewer than 1 per cent of directors possessing dedicated artificial intelligence or cybersecurity skills, according to a new report by Grant Thornton Hong Kong. The firm’s 15th annual Corporate Governance Review – which surveyed 100 major listed firms on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Composite Index – fou...
A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on American Idol was convicted of murder on Tuesday in the killing of his wife while he was having an affair. Prosecutors said Caleb Flynn, 40, staged a home invasion in February after shooting his wife, Ashley Flynn, a 37-year-old teacher and volleyball coach. Flynn, who claimed his wife was killed by a burglar, could get up to life in prison without t...
A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on American Idol was convicted of murder on Tuesday in the killing of his wife while he was having an affair. Prosecutors said Caleb Flynn, 40, staged a home invasion in February after shooting his wife, Ashley Flynn, a 37-year-old teacher and volleyball coach. Flynn, who claimed his wife was killed by a burglar, could get up to life in prison without t...
Five public universities in Hong Kong have ranked in the top 100 of a renowned British publication’s latest global league table, as part of a trend described as a “historic realignment” of academic prowess from West to East. The University of Hong Kong remained the city’s highest-ranked tertiary institution, holding onto 33rd place from the previous year, in the Times Higher Education (THE) World ...
King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri on Tuesday as Morocco’s first woman prime minister after her liberal-centrist party came out on top in a September 23 parliamentary election, the royal palace said. The king asked El Mansouri to form a new government, the palace said in a statement. El Mansouri’s Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) was created in 2008 by an adviser to the k...
As American billionaires gathered at the White House to honour Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan last Thursday, a group of Chinese business leaders spent the evening on the sidelines. They had travelled to the US capital to join the state dinner. But their invitations never arrived. For weeks, their participation was the subject of intense discussion between Washington and Beij...
A man was dragged to death by a New York subway train when a bag he was carrying got stuck in the door during the Monday evening rush hour commute, police said. Yaw Boahene, 57, was exiting the train at a Brooklyn subway station at around 6pm when his bag, which police described as a shopping bag, snagged in the closing train doors. The Brooklyn resident was pulled onto the tracks and run over by ...
If you want to understand how Washington exercises power in the world, watch what it does when its closest allies try to deepen ties with each other. When EU chief Ursula von der Leyen proposed making Canada the European Union’s first-ever “associate member”, US President Donald Trump’s response was swift and blunt: “If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious ta...
New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham set out a sweeping political vision on Tuesday, pledging to give Britain “a new social contract for the 21st century”, reform the country’s electoral system and reset its relationship with its European neighbours. But he acknowledged that economic constraints make delivering his sweeping plans a big political risk. “Small things will not get us through what ...
New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham set out a sweeping political vision on Tuesday, pledging to give Britain “a new social contract for the 21st century”, reform the country’s electoral system and reset its relationship with its European neighbours. But he acknowledged that economic constraints make delivering his sweeping plans a big political risk. “Small things will not get us through what ...
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he does not want to work with China on addressing artificial intelligence (AI) risks, arguing that cooperation could undermine America’s lead in the fast-moving technology. “Whoever wins superintelligence wins. You’re gonna have a winner and a loser, and you’re probably not gonna have a second place,” Trump said at the launch event for America.gov, a new A...
China has launched an air force support and training centre in Laos, its third overseas military outpost, which observers say could help the PLA expand its footprint and interests in the region. The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Centre and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy are now in operation at the Ban Keun Airport, aiming to help the Laotian Air Force train its pilots, China’s ...
China has launched a rare air force support and training centre in Laos, the Ministry of Defence announced on Tuesday. The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Centre and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy are now in operation at the Ban Keun Airport, aiming to help the Laotian Air Force train its pilots, the ministry said in a statement. The two institutions will be jointly maintained an...
A UK probe into a suspected bomb plot at an airbase used by the United States was mired in confusion Tuesday, as police said no explosives but a “quantity of petrol” was found in vehicles seized nearby. Police were called to the Royal Air Force Fairford base in southwest England on Sunday after a resident saw several vans “acting suspiciously”, triggering an evacuation of the nearby village and th...
A UK probe into a suspected bomb plot at an airbase used by the US was mired in confusion Tuesday, as police said no explosives but a “quantity of petrol” was found in vehicles seized nearby. Police were called to the Royal Air Force Fairford base in southwest England on Sunday after a resident saw several vans “acting suspiciously”, triggering an evacuation of the nearby village and the declarati...
Spain’s coalition government said it had agreed on proposals including banning evictions until 2030 to address the country’s housing crisis, as the 87-year-old woman whose forced removal last week triggered protests accepted an offer to return home. Hundreds of people remained camped in one of Madrid’s main squares on Tuesday to protest Maricarmen Abascal’s removal from her home on a stretcher la...
